2524 
1 

y 1 



THE INDlVIDlJALi 



A BACCALAUREATE, 



DELIVERED TO 



THE CLASS OF SENIORS, 



AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 



THE INDIAM imVERSITY, v 



AUGUST 13, 1851, 



BY A. WYLIE, D. D., President. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



INDIANAPOLIS: 
PRINTED BY JOHN D. DEFEEES 

1851. 



THE INDIVIDUAL: 



A BACCALAUREATE, 



DELIVERED TO 



THE CLASS OF SENIORS, 



AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 



THE IIDIAM UIIVEESITY, 



AUGUST 13, 185 1, 
BY A. WYLIE, D. D., President 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST 



INDIANAPOLIS: 

PRINTED BY JOHN D. DEFEEES. 

1851. 



ADDRESS. 



This occasion, young gentlemen, is called the Commence- 
ment. The word is very significant. A commencement is 
a beginning : and wherever there is a beginning there also is 
an ending. The day is dawning and the night ending at the 
same moment now to the people who live at a certain dis- 
tance to the west of us; and, as the earth revolves on its 
axis, this point is brought in succession to the eyes of all its 
inhabitants : and, as it pursues its annual course through the 
heavens, it brings, with the same unvarying regularity, the 
point at which one season of the year goes away and the 
next takes its place. What an impressive lesson does this 
emblem hold forth to our consideration! One generation 
cometh and another goeth. Life is a journey of successive 
stages : and at the " ultima hnea rerum " where this life ends, 
another hfe begins. 

The most interesting difference between that portion of 
life which with you is now ending and that which is in its 
commencement, consists in this, that, from this time onward, 
you are each of you to be more an individual than hitherto. 

The Individual : let this be the theme, therefore, of our 
present meditations. I shall not undertake to discuss it fully. 



[ 4 ] 

but only to sug-gest a few things in relation to it, which may 
afford matter for useful reflection in reference to that part 
which you may severally be called upon to act in future life. 
First of all, let us form to ourselves a distinct conception 
of what we mean by an individual. 

You have all noticed the way in which the strawberry 
plant propagates itself From the parent stock is sent forth 
what is called a runner, or, more properly, a creeper : for its 
progress is slow and cautious; and it keeps close to the 
ground in a lowly, unaspiring way. When it has extended 
itself to a convenient distance, a knot is formed, from which 
proceed a set of pointed fibres, which penetrate the soil and 
become roots for the new plant, which, with its tender stem 
and leaves, begins to shoot upwards. For some time the 
connecting runner to which it is attached remains in full 
vigor, conveying nourishment from the parent stock to the 
young plant. But, as this thrives, and grows from day to 
day stronger and stronger, less and less nourishment is sup- 
plied from the parent stock ; and at length it entirely ceases ; 
and then the connecting channel having performed its sus- 
taining office, dies away, and is dried up. The whole process 
is now complete, and the young plant is an individual Its 
life is in itself It henceforth performs all its functions by 
the independent working of its own inherent powers, drain- 
ing no portion of its ahment any more from any other source 
but the all-nourishing earth, the atmosphere, and the sun. 
I need not stop here to explain the points of resemblance 
between this phenomenon of nature and the case which it is 
brought to illustrate. You see what they are. But permit 
me, in following out the analogy a little further, to ask, Who 
is the gardener ? For without the gardener strawberries do 
not grow here. The time was — it is not so very long ago 
but that some now living may have seen it — when, as I have 



[ 5 ] 

been told, was the case in Harrison Prairie, there grew, near 
the place where Terre Haute now stands, and doubtless 
many other places in these western wilds, extensive thick set 
plantations of this delightful vegetable, bearing their annual 
crop of dehcious fruit spontaneously, a luxurious feast for 
the roving birds. But this state of things, like the fabled 
golden age of the poet, and the philosophers state of nature, 
which is no less a fiction, — a fiction however which has 
proved less innocent than that of the poet, — this state of 
things has passed away, to return no more. The foot of the 
grazing ox, the hoof of the wanton steed, the snout of the 
swine turning up the sod in pursuit of worms, had by this 
time extirpated the strawberry, even if the ploughshare and 
the spade and the crushing wheel had spared it. The care 
of the gardener, after enclosing his ground with a close and 
strong fence, must be employed assiduously in its cultivation, 
else no strawberry — not an individual plant, can be produced. 
And, in the analogous case, I ask, Who is the gardener? 
Under God, whose kingdom ruleth over all, and whose tender 
care extends to all his creatures — under God, I reply, it is 
the Genius of Civilization., working through the instrumen- 
talities, or, if the term be thought more appropriate, the Or- 
dinances of the Family, of the State, and of the Church. 
Without this I am bold to affirm not only that man cannot 
grow and flourish as a social being in communities of any 
kind, but that he cannot exist as an individual : he must die 
out and pass away into non-existence and obHvion. This is 
the sure doom of the savage man ; and it is fast coming upon 
him wherever he exists upon the face of the earth. I speak 
of man and of the world as they now are. If there ever had 
been such a state as that which philosophers of a certain 
school love to talk of, called "A state of nature," in which 
every individual was his own judge and his own avenger, a 



[ 6 ] 

separate being, independent of every other, and under no 
obligations to any, till he might choose to bring himself under 
them, by a voluntary surrender of his so-called natural rights, 
it must have ended in a very short time. 

The law^s of man's nature forbid that he should prolong 
his existence, and, indeed, that he should exist at all, in the 
state of a separate, independent, individual. Unless he enters 
into the bonds of domestic society he must, by the common 
law of mortality, depart from his place, leaving no one to fill 
the vacancy. And this shows that the family is not a piece 
of human pohcy, but an ordinance of nature, and of Him 
who is the Author of nature. Though man may modify, he 
cannot destroy it, without, at the same time, destroying him- 
self. If he pull down the pillars of this temple, he is crushed 
and buried under its ruins. 

That form of social life which we call The State, and 
which is made up of a number of families united together by 
an organic law called the Constitution, exists by a necessity, 
not indeed essential to the being of man, but certainly to his 
well-being. 

The same is true, to some extent, of that other institution 
called the Church. How far it is true I shall not now en- 
quire. Nor shall I attempt, in this incidental notice of it 
which I am now taking, to assign to the term any very strict 
and definite meaning, such as it bears in the discourses of 
theologians; but taking it in a wider and more general 
sense to denote any Institution having for its end the culture 
and training of the rehgious tendencies of our nature, I ob- 
serve that we find distinct notices of its existence in the his- 
tory of all nations. Prior to the calling of Abraham, which, 
next to that of the Advent, is the most remarkable among 
the epochs of the world's history, it seems to have existed in 
the family; the patriarch being the priest, as well as ruler 



[ t ] 

over his own household . Since that period it has existed not 
only among his descendants, but among all other nations 
who have made a figure in the world, in a form distinct from 
that of the family, and been conducted on principles and by 
means of an organization pecuhar to itself. 

Having thus, as briefly as possible, brought under our view 
the family, the state, and the church, let us see how the indi- 
vidual is affected by them. 

And here it is very obvious, that the influence of that 
which is first in order, is pre-eminent also in importance. 
The individual can hardly be said to exist so long as he is 
growing up in the family. This is only the nursery of future 
men. Here they are under a process by which they are 
slowly and gradually but surely formed : and till this process 
is finished, the individual is not complete, as has been already 
shown ; and though the influence of both Church and State 
may affect him, and must affect him, in many ways and in 
all his interests, it reaches him only through the acts of the 
parent, or some other guardian, who stands towards him in 
the place of a parent; and this, according to the manifest 
design and intention of nature, continues to be the case, till 
the infant is developed into the man. Suppose, now, that he 
becomes a member of the church — how much remains to 
him of his individual self, will depend upon the character and 
claims of that society, whatever it be, which, under the name 
of a church, admits him into its communion. If the power 
of pronouncing by its authoritative decrees what he is to be- 
lieve and what he is not to beheve upon the peril of his soul, 
be one of its attributes, implicit faith is his duty, as one of its 
members ; and all further exercise of his reason, that prime 
element of the individual man, is superseded, and may be 
laid aside, except so far as may be necessary to learn what 
the dogmas are. And if, further, the church, or whatever 



[ 8 ] 

be the name of the society in question, claims, as another of 
its attributes, the power of affecting his spiritual interests by 
means of a virtue inherent in her official acts, and mechani- 
cally exerting itself, then another, and the only remaining 
element, which, in conjunction with the former, makes up the 
individual man, I mean his will, with the other faculties which 
ought to guide it to a proper determination, such as con- 
science, and the other moral sentiments; — this also is super- 
seded, and nothing of the individual man is left which he can 
properly call his own, except his body. His soul is in the 
hands of the Mandarin, or whatever be the name of the 
functionary to whom the surrender of this part of himself 
may have been made. ThinUng and willing are gone from 
the man. They are absorbed in the church. Imphcit faith 
and a passive reception of the "opus operatum" — as when 
the heated iron receives the stroke of the hammer — have 
been substituted in their place. 

Let this picture of the shadow of the individual, represent 
whatever may be found any where to which it will apply. 
Think not to find its original in the church of Rome only. 
It exists there, and among Protestants also, though they all 
disclaim it. Among the most recent of the formations calling 
themselves by this general name — I mean the Mormons — 
it is probable, judging from what we know of their history, 
that it exists in specimens as numerous as the members. 

Practically, any society of people may be thrown for a 
time into a form answering to the portrait I have drawn. 
They may be all of them members and not one of them an 
individual, the mind of the individual being lost and absorbed 
in that of the fraternity. The phenomenon has often been 
seen on this earth. And it is always portentous. 

Substituting temporal for spiritual matters, in the represen- 
tation just given, you will have some idea — rude and imper- 



[ 9 ] 

feet indeed, but still an idea — of what that society is, which 
we call The State. This also may claim, and has often in 
other countries claimed, and exercised, attributes correspond- 
ing to those I have mentioned as being sometimes arrogated 
by the church, — attributes which absorb the individual man, 
and merge him into the member — the subject. That it may 
ever on any emergency do so of rights is no part of my 
creed : and I may be excused for mentioning it here, that the 
good people of the State may know, that when they send 
their sons to this University, they do not expose them to the 
danger of imbibing the doctrine, once prevalent, but now 
only held by semi-barbarous tyrants, — that, I mean, which 
was once exploded by our fathers at the cannon''s mouth — 
the doctrine of "unlimited obedience." 

No individual can indeed have the right to resist the laws. 
He must submit, in all cases, to the powers that be. But 
submission is not obedience. If the law commands the indi- 
vidual to do any thing which in his conscience he knows and 
feels that it would be sinful for him to do, rather, infinitely 
rather than obey, let him suffer the penalty, whatever it may 
be. For there is no sin in submitting to wrong in such a 
case, any more than to submit to sickness, or any other ca- 
lamity which it may please a wise and righteous Providence 
to inflict. As it respects the individual this rule is universal 
and admits no exceptions. For the individual is always 
a member of some state to which he owes allegiance. With 
the people in a body, the case is different. They have the 
right of organizing rebellion, with the view not only of re- 
sisting the edicts of an oppressive and tyrannical government, 
but of overturning it altogether. To deny this, and to main- 
tain the doctrine that there is no higher law than the will of 
government, is to sink, as with an earthquake, the whole 
domain of individual rights — to destroy the very ground on 



[ 10 ] 

which the individual stands, and to ascribe to government a 
power which no government has, or can have, not even that 
which belongs to the Supreme Ruler of the universe. It is 
no want of reverence towards His Adorable Majesty to say, 
that He^ cannot abolish the reality of moral distinctions by 
an arbitrary decree, so as to make, for example, ingratitude 
a duty, and honesty a crime. To ascribe to Him such a 
power, would be the very height and extreme of blasphemy ; 
since it would be to suppose Him indifferent in his regard 
towards right and wrong. 

If it be asked what becomes of the allegiance of the indi- 
vidual when he joins in a revolutionary movement, the 
answer is at hand. It has not perished. It cannot perish. 
It is transformed to that organization which makes the move- 
ment. From the moment of his connexion with it, it be- 
comes, to him, the State. He has become a member of it. 
His fate is bound up in it ; and, if it fails, he is well aware of 
what he has to expect at the hands of that government which 
he means to destroy. 

The boundary which encloses what belongs to the individ- 
ual, as distinct from what belongs to the State, cannot well 
be understood without a distinct reference to land as a mat- 
ter of property. Man is of the earth, earthy. Dust he is, 
and unto dust he returns. During hfe he is fed and clothed 
from the earth. The earth affords materials for a house and 
for that variety of things necessary for his comfort with 
which it is furnished. The earth is the material basis on 
which his traveling, and all the operations of trade are 
carried on. The earth has furnished the stuff of which books 
and telescopes, microscopes, and thousands of other contri- 
vances are constructed, for the purpose of facihtating the 
operations of the intellect in its pursuit of knowledge. And, 
what is more wonderful still, there seems to emanate from 



[.11 ] 

the soil on which man treads, an influence which reaches 
even to the depths of his moral nature, determining and 
fixing his judgments as to right and wrong. Why else is it 
that in one part of our country slavery is justified, while in 
another it is regarded as a mortal sin? The reason seems 
to be that the soil, in the one, is adapted to the growth of 
cotton; and, in the other, not. Accordingly, it is found, that 
when a man changes his residence from the one soil to the 
other, a change of opinion is apt to follow. 

These observations on the peculiar nature of property in 
land, are intended to show that every State has an interest in 
every foot of land within its limits, which interest it holds by 
"the right of eminent domain," as the phrase is, to which the 
right of individual ownership is, and must be, subordinate. 
So that, should some wealthy individual buy up all the land 
in this and the adjoining counties, for the purpose of convert- 
ing the whole into a great park, to be peopled by deer in- 
stead of human inhabitants, or by human inhabitants not 
subject to the government of the state, the state would, in 
either case, interpose to prevent the execution of such design. 
Individuals secede from the state and from the Union, at 
death. But their land remains, and the government with its 
right of eminent domain remains ; so that, while "heir to heir 
succeeds, as in a rolling flood wave follows wave," each gen- 
eration enjoys the protection of government with the im- 
mense advantages it implies, as surely as it does the kindly 
influences of Nature existent in the steadfast earth and the 
everlasting stars. And, as, in obedience to the decrees of 
fate, individuals must, each at the appointed time, secede 
from the government in leaving the world ; so they have the 
undoubted right of seceding from it, at any time during life 
which they themselves may choose, — leaving, in both cases, 
their lands behind them, with the government's right of emi- 



[ 12.] 

nent domain lying undisturbed upon them. The impossi- 
bihty of doing otherwise, is, in the one case, a physical im- 
possibihty : in the other, it is only a moral. But this moral 
impossibility, the people of these United States can, if God 
pleases, change into a physical impossibility, whenever the 
crisis for making the experiment shall be forced upon them. 
On this question they do not speak their minds. They ought 
not. They cannot. It is not a theme for w^ords. Words 
cannot utter the thoughts and feelings which true patriots have 
deposited within them, deep in the calm and tranquil principles 
of their hearts and souls, their minds and spirits. When the 
occasion comes — O, God Who art terrible in Thy judgments 
and W^ho dost sometimes send upon a people, whose crimes 
have filled up the measure of Thy forbearance, strong delu- 
sions that they may believe a He and so rush into ruin — 
grant, we beseech Thee, that the occasion may never come! — 
but if it must come, then will the mind of this great nation, 
which has grown to its present greatness in so short a time 
by virtue of the Union, speak out in the language of deeds, — 
action, — slow it will certainly be, and reluctant, but — deci- 
sive. But let me turn away from the contemplation of an 
idea which ought seldom to be brought into view, and never 
but to be loathed and deprecated. 

The foregoing remarks have been made with the view of 
preparing the way for the announcement of a very general 
and comprehensive principle, which applies to the case of the 
individual, in his relations to others. It is a principle so pow- 
erful in its application, that it may well be called the law of 
individual life relatively to others. It is, moreover, a law so 
exceedingly plain and simple, that an apology seems neces- 
sary for distinctly mentioning it, and still more for giving to it 
that degree of prominence which it holds in the sequel of this 
discourse. The apology shall be given, and it is this, that the 



[ 13 ] 

principle, which is at the same time so plain and so important, 
is one which in fact is too commonly either overlooked or 
disregarded by men in their intercourse of life. The law is 
this, that every relation into which a man enters with others, 
as well as those relations in which the hand of Nature has 
placed him, retrenches somewhat from his freedom of acting 
as an individual. To be in the relation, whatever be its na- 
ture, makes him a partner with another, and this is incom- 
patible, to a certain extent, with his freedom as an individual : 
and to be in a relation to a number of others, a body, a so- 
ciety, an order, or whatever it may be called, makes him a 
member of that body, society, or order. And, as there are, 
or at least are supposed to be, some advantages attached to 
membership, and other advantages belonging to the state of 
individual freedom, no one can consistently claim to himself 
the enjoyment of both. Mankind will not allow it. The 
privileges which the individual hopes to enjoy by becoming a 
member of an association, are the measure of his duties to it : 
and it would be unfair for him to claim the privilege, while he 
refuses to render the duty which is its equivalent. This law 
is fundamental to all associations. If not enforced, the asso- 
ciation goes to pieces, either in the shock of some sudden 
convulsion, or in the melting away of a more gradual disso- 
lution. 

Never, perhaps, was there a country or a time, in which 
there existed so many associations as in our own. Beside 
Banks, Railroad Companies, and other corporations deriving 
their existence by charter from the State, there are hundreds 
of others having a visible organization, besides I know not 
how many more that are invisible. Every adult individual 
in the Union, and many a one who is not adult, belongs to 
some one or other of these associations. Some individuals 
belong to many ; so that, among hands, nothing of their indi- 



[ 14 ] 

viduality is left for themselves ; part of it being absorbed by 
one, and part by another of these greedy monsters. And, 
not unfrequently, it happens, that a poor fellow, struggling 
hard with the waves in the troubled voyage of life, falling in 
with some one of them more voracious than the rest, is con- 
tent to be taken and swallowed whole by it, without even the 
chance, or the desire, of being vomited forth again upon dry 
land. I desire to deal not in indiscriminate censure. There 
are in this country, and in England, associations not a few, 
some of them of long standing, which have been, and con- 
tinue to be, instruments in the hands of Divine Providence of 
diffusing, far and wide over the face of the earth, the richest 
blessings. Long may they flourish, and may the blessing of 
approving Heaven rest upon their benevolent labors! 

But there are other combinations to which no such com- 
mendation will apply; and there are others of a doubtful 
tendency. 

But, however excellent the constitution on which a society 
may be based, and however desirable and important be the 
ends towards which, in theory, it may tend, it is not possible 
that it should practically accomphsh their ends when once it 
is made up of unworthy members. Vicious men do not be- 
come better by moving and acting in concert : they generally 
become worse. And the line, which St. Paul, by quoting it 
from one of the ancient heathen poets, has made sacred, 
should ever be borne in mind, especially by those whose char- 
acters are yet unformed: ''Evil communications corrupt 
good manners." Indeed, so strong are the imitative propen- 
sities of our nature, which, though diminished, are by no 
means destroyed by advancing age, and so many and so 
subtle are the sympathies which tend to assimilate the mem- 
bers of a fraternity together, that even the man whose virtues 
have become habits could not trust himself safely in the fel- 



[ 15 ] 

lowship of bad men for any length of time. Every good 
man knows this; and finds the blessedness of which the 
Psalmist speaks in not walking in the counsel of the ungodly, 
nor standing in the way of sinners, nor sitting in the seat of 
the scornful. 

The way to escape pollution is to recoil from its touch. To 
maintain one's individuality is indeed often a hard matter. It 
is like standing alone in the forest when the whirlwind passes, 
uprooting or twisting off the trees of ordinary growth — an 
honor which belongs to the poplar only, the stubborn oak not 
being able to withstand the shock for the reason that, as if 
vain and self-confident, it displays too much canvass. Some 
who now hear me were residing in this place when the hur- 
ricane swept through the till then unbroken forest north-east 
of town. Not being then in the country, I can only conceive 
the scene from the monuments of it which the tempest could 
not overturn, and which, some of them, still remain ; though 
it is about thirty yeeirs since all their fellows of the forest 
were torn away by the furious blast. Often, in passing along 
the road, I have looked up with admiration at those sound 
hearted, straight, upright, towering trees! Noble trees! con- 
querers of the storm! the dastard axe might have spared you! 
But, though it dared not cut you through^ it has basely cut 
off your sustenance from mother-earth, by girdling you 
round ; yet still ye stand there in solitary grandeur, emblems, 
methinks, of the truly great man, who not merely holds fast 
his integrity when the storm of adversity, having swept away 
his friends and companions from his side, spends its utmost 
fury upon him alone, but stands erect after the keen edge of 
treachery has caused his spreading honors to wither, calmly 
waiting the hour, which, sooner or later, comes to level all 
that the earth sustains. But here the emblem fails. For 
Christianity assures the good man — or, if you prefer the ex- 



[ 16 ] 

pression, the great man — for they are the same — in the 
hopes of a contmued existence, in which what we call death 
is but a change, a stage in his journey upward — a lifting of 
the vail which now hides from our view — glories — glories 
not utterable in human language. 

In this remark I do not wander from my subject. It con- 
ducts me to the very heart of it. For it is Christianity, more 
than any thing else, more than all things else, which gives to 
man an individuality of character. If Christianity were a 
Fiction, I would say it was the most cunningly devised of all 
fictions. Nothing could enter into the imagination of a Ho- 
mer, a Scott, or a Shakspeare, so powerful to move the soul 
in all its depths. By showing to man his nature, as a ration- 
al and immortal being ; by setting clearly before him his rela- 
tions to The Creator, on whom he depends, and to whom he 
is accountable ; by informing him of the grand fact of his 
Redemption by Jesus Christ, what it implies, and what is its 
immediate result, that, namely, of putting him upon his trial 
under a new dispensation of grace ; and thus operating at 
once upon his hopes, fears, and affections ; in these and many 
other ways, which need not here be mentioned, it Jinds man 
amidst the throng of his companions, and arrests him, with a 
strong, but friendly hand, takes him aside from the crowd, and 
from the noise and bustle of life, and shows him his Worthy 
and his Responsibility^ as an Individual Here is a mighty 
change ; a change, may I not say, from zero to a positive 
quantity. For what is a man without a sense of his worth 
and responsibihty? A nothing; morally a nothing. You 
may put him, like a nought, in connexion with one or more 
integers, and then their value will be increased tenfold : but 
by varying the connexion it may be diminished in the same 
proportion. " Worth makes the man, and want of it, the 
fellow :" and, in the mustering and arrangements of human 



[ 17 ] 

life, it may happen, that the " fellow " may so stand in 
reference to the "men" as to reduce their social value, in 
the way of decimals, to a very small fraction. 

Look where you will through nature, and the ranks of men, 
and you will find that all the realities are individuals. This 
assembly now before me is nothing in itself. When the 
occasion shall have passed, and the individuals, which col- 
lectively compose it, shall have left the hall, and gone their 
ways, where will the assembly be? Nowhere. It will have 
no existence. What gives it its existence now? Not any 
mind that is in it : nothing but the accordance of the several 
minds of the individuals in one small point : differing in almost 
all things else, they agree in remaining together till the ex- 
ercises are over. Hence the assembly. 

Now, I say, that the faith of the Christian concerns him 
most as an individual, and tends, if I may so say, to make of 
him more of an individual than he was before, or than he 
ever could be without it. I speak with reference to worldly 
relations. What is it to him who has faith in Christ, what 
the world thinks, or says, or does? The spring and source of 
his interests and pohcy are not in the world, but in the things 
which are above. A light emanating from the cross, or, to 
speak more properly, from the vacated tomb of Him who ex- 
pired upon the cross, and casting its rays upwards along the 
path of life, takes his eye; — why should he walk by the light 
of men's fires, and the sparks which they have kindled? 
There is one Master of whom he learns ; one Leader whose 
voice he knows and follows ; one Lord whom he serves, to 
whose hands he has confided himself, and who, he doubts not, 
is both faithful to the trust, and able to keep it safe "until 
that day;" to whom else should he go? 

But since the faith of which I am speaking " cometh by 
hearing," let me not be understood as intimating that he who 
3 



[ 18 ] 

has it, holds it apart by himself, as if it were excogitated by 
his own individual reason, or given personally to himself by 
immediate revelation. The first of these notions is absurd, 
and contrary to the very nature of the christian faith ; the 
second is a most pernicious fancy, fruitful of impostures. 
The '-word of faith," as St. Paul calls it, was preached by 
those who were " sent,'''' commissioned to preach it. It was 
a creative word. It made the church, which is the mother of 
true believers ; and of which no individual believer seeks to 
be independent. Yet the church member remains an indi- 
vidual still : and the church can not beheve for him ; nor per- 
form any of his other personal duties ; nor give him a dispen- 
sation from the obligation of performing them, any more 
than it can die for him, or be answerable for him at the bar 
of his Final Judge. 

Whatever be the relations which place an individual in con- 
nexion with others, wdiether it be those of the family, those 
of the state, those of the church, those of the neighborhood, 
those of the school, or those of that unorganized society, 
which, existing under cover of the State, is regulated by the 
law of public sentiment alone, in matters, which, however 
important they may be as it respects decency, good order, 
and the enjoyments of social life, cannot be reached by any 
other law, — in all these relations, it is important practically 
to keep in view the distinction between approbation and tol- 
eration. This is a distinction so obviously dictated by the 
rule, founded on the necessary diversities of character and 
opinion in the world, which requires of every one to concede 
to others the liberty which he claims for himself, that one 
would think it could not be overlooked so frequently as it is. 
Whenever it is altogether neglected in any community, there 
ensues such a scene of confusion and strife, so much jealousy 
and suspicion, so much impertinence and intermeddling, so 



[ 19 ] 

many jars and bickerings, that one who loves peace, rather 
than submit to so much annoyance, would prefer to seclude 
himself entirely from the world, and take up his residence in 
the cell of the hermit. But as this would not be right, were 
it even practicable, it becomes his duty as clearly as it is his 
interest, to tolerate^ in his relations with others, some things 
which he does not approve. How much, or how little, must 
depend on the nature of those relations. From himself as 
the centre — that I may express the idea the more briefly, let 
me. represent it in terms borrowed from geometry — let there 
be drawn a succession of concentric circles, each successive 
circle being described by the sweep of a radius longer than 
that of the preceding, till the last and widest shall inclose 
the whole human family. Let there be also, as in the solar 
system, elliptical orbits in the scheme, such as those in which 
the comets move. Such a scheme may well represent the 
relations in which man as an individual is more or less closely 
connected with others ; the circles representing those w^hich 
are more natural, permanent and useful, such as those of the 
family, those of the church, those of the state, those of friend- 
ship, those of local vicinage, and the like ; and the ellipses, 
those which depend more upon choice ; such as those of the 
Sons of Temperance, the Odd Fellows, Free Masons, and 
other fraternities without number, which diversify the firma- 
ment of social life. Now, it is nianifest that, in reference to 
the persons, their opinions and conduct, who are considered 
as included within these several circles, the things to be tole- 
rated, the points of difference between them and the individu- 
al, are more or less numerous, according as the radius vector 
which sweeps the area of the circle in which they stand 
shall be longer or shorter. The individual is a unit, a point : 
the wrong that there is in himself he ought not to tolerate. 
Let him give no quarters within himself to the evil which he 



[ 20 ] 

condemns. But when he comes out of the sphere of his per- 
sonal responsibilities, the first woman that he meets — for it 
is always a woman — he must 

" Be to her faults a little blind ; 
" Be to her virtues very kind ; 
"Let all her ways be unconfined" — 

or, if that would be a little too tolerant, he must — do the best 

he can in the case; — still, he is bound to be, to some extent, 

tolerant. To a friend he should be still more so ; to a neighbor 

more so than to a friend; and to a fellow citizen more so than 

to a neighbor ; and to one of another State, than to one of his 

own State ; and to a foreigner more than to a fellow citizen ; 

and so on in all analogous cases. Now, if an individual 

should yield to any one in the attempt, or to the whole world, 

should the whole world combine in the attempt, to cause him 

to do any thing which in his conscience he condemns, he 

would degrade himself from his state of individuality, into 

the condition of an appendage, a tool, a slave. The conduct of 

Jenny Lind, in such a case, shows her not to be a "vox et pre- 

terea nihil," but as strong and as noble in mind as she is sweet 

and captivating in song. The King of Sweden had desired her 

to sing in a concert, which was to be performed at his palace 

on Sunday. He even visited her in person with his request. It 

was in vain. As her sovereign he changed the request into a 

command. Still it was in vain. Her reply was respectful, 

and at the same time sublimely just and noble: "There is a 

higher King, Sire, to whom I owe my first allegiance." It is 

to the spirit which prompted the heroic songstress to speak 

thus to the King of Sweden, that the world is indebted for 

whatever of civil and religious liberty is to be found any 

where among its inhabitants. The truth of this assertion 

will not be doubted by any one who has read history with an 

eye to the laws by which human nature is governed. It is a 

momentous truth. Never let it be forgotten by the lover of 



[ 21 ] 

his country and of the rights of man, that allegiance to the 
Supreme Ruler of the Universe, acknowledged and felt in 
the hearts of the individuals composing a nation, is the spring 
of that nation's liberty, and of that happiness and prosperity, 
and national greatness, which are its fruits. Without a sense 
of personal worth and individual responsibility, as we have 
before intimated, no man is prepared to act his part either as 
a citizen, or as a member of society. But without faith in 
God, what is his worth, or what is the estimate in which he 
holds his fellow. He is a reasoning animal, mortal as other 
animals : and to take his life is a matter of little moment. It 
is only diverting a few ounces of red fluid out of their natu- 
ral current — which must soon become stagnant at any rate. 
And without faith in the moral government of God, which 
looks into the hidden man of the heart, takes cognizance of 
the overt acts which the darkness may conceal, or accompli- 
ces may cover from the scrutiny of human law, and which 
carries the thoughts forward to a future reckoning, in which 
there will be no respect of persons, — without this, where is 
the sense of individual responsibihty ? What is there to 
nourish it and make it strong? Honor? A love of distinc- 
tion? This is a sentiment of great potency, I admit; and it 
has done great things. But not always on the side of liberty. 
Too often on the other side. Like the Argyraspides, honored 
by Alexander the Great, who, in the heat of an engagement, 
deserted the standard of Eumenes, their general, and joining 
the other side turned the day against him, it is open to bribery 
and corruption, and has, indeed, no very acute discernment 
in moral qualities. In monarchy, the king is the fountain of 
honor : and we know that in Great Britain distinction has 
frequently by the monarch been worthily bestowed. How 
often unworthily, I need not say : for it is nothing to us. 
Here the people are the fountain of honor, and distinctions 



[ 22 ] 

flow from their favor. I rejoice that it is so. Long may it 
continue so to be. All I mean to sa}^ is, that honor, as a pre- 
vailing- public sentiment, is capable of yielding neither sup- 
port nor security to liberty, which, properly understood, is 
only another name for the public good, any longer than the 
people remain such as to be able to distinguish sohd merit 
from empty pretension, a thing which sounds the loudest pre- 
cisely for the reason that it is empty. And this brings us 
back to the individual again. For the character of the people 
in the aggregate, is made up of the characters of the indi- 
viduals, counted one by one. 

But here, leaving unfinished the thought which I had in- 
tended to present more fully in the progress of this discourse 
than I find I have been able to do, I must hasten to a close. 

There are now, as there always have been in the world, 
two sorts of men that are very distinguishable from each 
other. One is the self-made man ; the other is the people- 
made man. The first is apt to be a strong man, but rough, 
conceited, self-willed, head-strong, hard to get along with, 
and, in short, an egoist : and yet it is possible to have all the 
other of these properties without the first, — to be a very 
weak man, and yet an egoist. But such never live long in 
the public eye, and may be left out of the account. The 
second sort are weak, but plausible, smooth, complaisant, 
pliant to the will of others, as having none of their own. 
These men are not social, but rather gregarious. They may 
be intensely selfish ; hunting their prey in companies like the 
wolf 

But is human nature capable of no better character than 
either of these? I cannot allow myself to think so meanly of 
it. Let me rather think of it as ol that wonderful element 
which performs so many useful ofiices in the grand economy 
of nature — water. Water is made up of drops, kindred. 



[ 23 ] 

indeed, but separate, and capable of the most free and easy 
motion among themselves ; and pure no longer than such mo- 
tion is allowed. See them rolling in the wide, deep, ocean; — 
see them rising in vapor, and diffusing themselves in clouds 
through the sky; — see them careering on the wings of the 
winds; — congregating over the mountain tops; — descending 
in copious showers; — dancing in rivulets down the slopes of 
the hills; — dripping from the rocks; — flashing in the cas- 
cade; — sporting through the gay meadows, and coming to- 
gether in larger streams ; uniting their force to turn the use- 
ful wheel, and to buoy up and bear along the heavy freighted 
vessel ; till they return from their circuit to their ocean-home. 
Were the waters endowed with hfe, this is the kind of life 
they would choose — free, yet not lawless; individual, yet con- 
genial : and therefore happy. Yes, happ)^ Hear ye not the 
joyous music of the waters, singing their song of ever-vary- 
ing notes, as they travel merrily on in their constant journey 
through sea, and air, and land ? 

But see them in another and very different state, lying sul- 
len and silent, consolidated by the binding frost of winter, — 
fit emblem of that power, whether exerted by a single despot 
or by a pa,rty, to which we give the name of tyranny — con- 
gealed into aflat, even and treacherous plain, on which every 
filthy sewer and gutter may discharge its reeking contents ; 
and every vile beast may insultingly tread; — there it remains, 
inert, passive, and motionless, till broken up by the flood ; then 
the huge mass drives on, crashing and demolishing in its re- 
sistless course, factory and mill house and bridge, and what- 
ever useful structure it may impinge against. 

Were there none but the two sorts of characters, just now 
mentioned, in the world, or to be in the world, there could 
be no hope for mankind in their social state : it must always 



[ 24 ] 

be either frozen into a solid mass, or broken up and driving 
on in the angry, headlong flood of revolution. 

But there are other characters beside these two; men 
vs^ho — to keep up our figure of the waters — have in them 
and diffuse around them enough of the vital warmth of high 
moral and religious principle, to keep the mass of society 
from congelation, men in whose souls dwell the heaven-born 
triad. Faith, Hope and Charity, honest men and true ; true to 
themselves, and true to their country, as being in the first 
place, true to their God. These men are, in the true sense of 
the term, conservative — a sense which the mere pohtician 
cannot understand ; they are the salt of the earth, and the real 
conservatives of the State; and though they be rarely found 
in office, as indeed they do not usually aspire after it, yet, in 
their quiet and peaceable ways of hfe, they do more to promote 
the real welfare of the nation, I mean the happiness of the 
citizens in the aggregate, than all the public functionaries by 
their official acts. May I not call them the God-made men? 

Young Gentlemen : by wisely considering your individual 
characters, by knowing yourselves, and of what you are ca- 
pable, you may be able to judge, with some degree of cer- 
tainty, to what course of life you are called by Him in whose 
hand are your destinies. You will naturally, henceforth, feel 
a burden of cares and responsibilities resting upon you, from 
which, hitherto, you have been free. Minute instructions 
sufficient for your future guidance, I do not pretend to give. 
I cannot. Nor can any human being. You know to whom 
this title, "The Counsellor," belongs, and what awful words 
they are which He spake concerning the two ways, " the nar- 
row" and "the broad! " To Him allow me, in parting, to 
commend you, not only for guidance, but protection. 



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